laptop power options

Hi all, Finally got my laptop sorted thank's to col (pebbles) and am now looking at recharging options
when in the bush. I would like to recharge it from an 12 /240 inverter, which would be handy for other
tasks as well. My laptop is a toshiba 15.6 screen model and can draw 3.42 amps on charging . I would like to know
what size inverter i should buy to achieve my goals. All ready/well allmost to take of to leonora at the end of the
month so looking forward to any replies..cheers all and good hunting..ron   

Ron a 150w would be minimum, 400w will do it no problem, you will find with the small inverters you can charge the laptop bat and run off that but they struggle to charge the bat and use laptop at same time, ebay is the place to pick up cheep inverters the boffins recon get a pure sine wave inverter for electronics (costs more) but im not convinced mines a modified sine and runs laptop no worries.

one other thing I have wired in a usb plug into my cruiser they run at 5. something volts real handy for charging phones etc a lot of gear uses usb for charging now days saves going 12v -240v - 5v again

cheers Tom

Hi Ronybaby49
The other option would be to charge it from your car or a any 12volt source eg cig lighter, caravan that's what I do with my Toshiba computer. I took my computer into Jaycar shop and they had every thing I needed or Dick Smith store would have the same.
Cheers Max

Yes, a step up transformer (Cheap as chips) 12/19V powers my on board laptop which steers me around the sticks using OziExplorer moving map.
The transformer has multiple output settings 15V and upwards.
A Garmin 176 mounted on the dash and hard wired to vehicle battery.
Usually it is never turned off from leaving home to return.


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With DC to AC Inverters, you may as well get the biggest one you can afford or at least one that can run a 500W Hilti or Dyna Drill for short periods considering there isnt much difference in price for a unit a couple of hundred watts ballsier if buying a small one.

... and Ya just never know when that could be handier than carrying a bulky 3KVA Genset for such a situation.

No real need for true sine wave units over standard triangle or modified wave units unless you are after less harmonic noise on your power supply. Modified or non-full sine wave noise might show up on a screen or flouro light as a slight flicker and will not harm their operation, so in my opinion not worth the extra cost. Most electronic charger equipment transforms the inverted AC back to DC to anyway.

ND.
Unemployed Elect.Techn./PT Social Prospector.

NuggieDreamer wrote:With DC to AC Inverters, you may as well get the biggest one you can afford or at least one that can run a 500W Hilti or Dyna Drill for short periods

ND.
Unemployed Elect.Techn./PT Social Prospector.

You are jesting??????? Yes very short periods, however how many targets are dug out in short time if they are in the base rock?
Be sticking to my 3kva genny.


Cheers

Ha Ha Ha, that 3KVA Genny takes way too much space away for Engel refreshment restock.  

My problems are solved, thanks to tom, max, peter and nuggie dreamer. I will launch myself into jaycar
and go for the step up transformer MP3324 at$59.95 . Gotta love that price. It should do for what i want to
recharge . many thanks again fellas and good hunting..  

While you're there Ronny be sure to get the correct fitting to suit the charging point in your laptop.

Hi Ronybaby49, I guess you have your inverter sorted out by now but I'll just add my two cents worth. We've been travelling with our two Apple laptops since 1997. We already had a couple of small inverters so just plugged them in whenever we went anywhere. The MacBook Pro 15" is really power hungry, too much for a 150W inverter so that one got left at home and we managed for a while on a 300W one.

We built our first camper in about 2004 and we installed a couple of 110A deep cycle batteries and a 1000W Projector inverter. It was a mongrel machine. It's fan roars whenever it's under load and it screams when it thinks you're drawing too much power.
luckily it blew up so I removed it and replaced it with a Powertech 1000W pure sine wave inverter. This is by far the best we've ever used. It sits silently working away all day on anything up to its maximum current supply. It even runs our Induction cooktop as long as we keep the stove on a low power setting. The fan will eventually come on but for a short while but otherwise you never know it's turned on.

We've had a couple of cheap inverters off eBay but all have been a disaster. The worst of all was when we recently purchased a 3000W (9000W maximum 25kg) 24V inverter charger from Bit-deals online. It failed in three days and within minutes of each time it came back from repair. In the end I didn't even get it back and by then it had run out of warranty.

We've had two very nice 600W Repco inverters. These run silently until stressed and produce very good power. The first one died because it drowned so I replaced it with another exactly the same.

I don't worry about buying Pure Sinewave because the laptops only use the AC power to charge their batteries. We still use the 1000W Powertech inverter everyday because it's by far the best we've ever owned.

There's still the problem of supplying sufficient battery power to run the inverter. We run a bank of four 100W deep cycle batteries wired for 24V output. We also have two N70Z batteries for start batteries and then a single 12V to connect with the old 12V inverter.

We have a 250W 24V solar panel on the roof and still we manage to run the batteries down so this trip we've brought the 2KVA Honda generator along to top up the batteries every few days with a 25A battery charger. Hopefully we'll have another solar panel on the roof soon.

The next thing I will look at when we get home is look for a higher output alternator. I don't know what's fitted now but it's not good enough.

If I was to start again I would fit all lead-acid batteries and forget about deep cycle batteries. I don't think they are suitable for automotive use as they never seem to get fully charged.

Hopefully we'll pick up our first metal detector tomorrow so then we have more batteries to charge along with the GPS, head lamps, torches, iPad, phones and things.

money box , the deep cycle batteries have cost me dearly in the past ,I wont bother with them again .Ive tried them twice & 6 months up the track they don't fail but seem to get sluggish . I find the hybrid marine ones go well , 3 to 4 years of service then chuckem & get some new ones , half the price of the hyped up deep cycle & better kick for the almighty fridge .